Garage Shop: Tools

It's hard finding those things on uncoated floors. Usually need a flashlight to make it shine and stand out.

 

Yes indeed that happens. Never thought of such an issue until I dropped a small bolt and it disappeared. A magnet and or a flashlight is my search party now. I always use a parts tray now. And, getting into my senior years, my mechanical "journeys" are diminishing and hence lost hardware is less of an issue!

 

I’m a fan, I’ve looked into those before because I hate crawling around underneath my truck trying to get the grease gun hooked on and pumping that stupid handle. I think it would help me stay on top of greasing everything at the proper intervals too!

I’ll have to check that out, the shorter handles are actually appealing to me.

 

Got quoted $2,200 to epoxy my 3 car garage. They sand/ smooth down, fill any imperfections or crack. Epoxy and confetti the floors. They also have Poly aspartic for $2,600 and will last longer than epoxy apparently. I think the poly is best for my situation. Thoughts?

 

I was the same way. It’s well worth it IMO

 

Doesn’t sound bad on the price, also sounds like they’re going to do it properly. I’ve seen some sketchy jobs where cracks showed through and it started chipping up.
The Ford dealership I worked at did the shop floor with the Polyaspartic coating, it was pretty nice. Still looks good 3 years later, I mean it’s crazy dirty but it’s held up.

Here’s a good quick comparison.

 

Thanks i read that article. since i live in the sunshine state i think the poly would work best for me since it has better UV protection than the Epoxy. Also its def not going to be a commercial garage with cars in and out so i thnk it will last longer than the shop lol

 

What's everyones favorite tool for removing snapped bolts? Just a solid set of left handed drill bits? Broke two of the four bolts holding the mid skid on my 4runner

And sadly, a few weeks ago I broke the front 2 of 4 holding the front skid on (I swear the PO never removed them, they were real corroded in there.) Those ones I drilled and nut-serted, but I'm not sure if I want to do that on the mid skids, they mount into a beefier section of crossmember and without knowing how thick that part is, I'm not sure how well nutserts will work there..

 

https://i.gifer.com/8XGM.gif
Zim

 

My welder. I've never had great luck with the actual bolt removal tools.

 

Broke below or above the surface? Either way a good starting point for me is to heat up the area and get the fastener nice and red. Then to hit the area with an air hammer for a bit. Does a great job and breaking the bond. After that just depends how it's broken. A good set of left hand bits is a worthwhile investment. If its below the hole you can find guides that fit into the hole and help center the bit.



And since you mentioned nutserts......and important thing with them is to get ones for the material thickness you want. Most of the basic kitsch come with ones only designed for thin materials. But go on grainger/McMaster carr and you can get ones for pretty thick materials

 

I did have that thought, this would be a great excuse to buy a little welder and zap a nut on the end. Not sure if the fiance would let me sleep indoors if I bought one right now though..

It snapped right at the surface on both. Yay. I'm going to try some heat and left handed bits and go from there.

 

Ah man that's prime welder territory lol I weld a washer to the remains of the bolt, then weld a nut to the washer.

 

Added a new pneumatic tool to the herd, should make prepping weird areas for welding easy, and cleaning up odd hard to reach spots.


Also my blue “nut cup” came today. Who doesn’t need a giant nut cup

 

I'm a big fan of the Harbor Freight Titanium 125. Their new Titanium and Vulcan welders are much better than the classic shitty HF flux welders. Certainly not going to be welding bridges and structural stuff with it, but its got enough juice penetrate 3/16" (on a 20amp outlet), and won't blow the bank. Welding nuts on the heads of bolts is a great way to get them out. The rapid heating/expansion of the bolt nub helps to break up the junk and they come out so much easier,

Heres an example where it helped me out recently. Not a snapped bolt, but this one I rounded the head on since it was so crusty, welded a nut on top, and it came out easily with a ratchet. You may also recognize this as the tail and of a (rusty AF) 4th gen
\

 

I was looking at the Titanium 125 earlier today, less expensive than I thought it'd be. How spatter-y is it? I always thought that was the biggest draw back to a flux welder vs something with gas, yeah?

And yes, that fun crusty shit looks all too familiar. Majority of my 4th gen is pretty clean, but I'm fairly certain the previous owner launched boats with it, the rear end is much crustier than anything on the front. Especially the lower half of the diff. In the next few months I'm probably going to go through and replace the various rods and bushings in the rear end and I'm not looking forward to it. I did the front end within a couple weeks of buying.

 

Its not really that spattery, which was pleasantly surprising. I also had the same apprehension with splatter from flux. I don't have many pics of welds with the slag over the weld, but I usually go once over with the wire wheel and it all cleans up all the little balls. I don't feel the need to use anti-spatter spray if that means anything. Here are some examples of welds with it once wire wheeled. Certainly not an expert lol, but I thought these looked good






all of these little surrounding slag balls clean up with one pass with a wire wheel, they're not adhered really at all






Same, my mid frame rails are minty, but the very back is trashed lol

that area cleaned up nicely with new brake lines and hardware

 

Here’s a tool to make life a little easier.

 

careful, i think it says in the instructions not to plug into an extension cord. pretty sure it needs to be direct into an outlet.

 

Why would it say that? The extension cord looks stout enough and the power loss is negligible. The extension cord is no different that if the outlet was placed further along the wall and had a longer cord to the breaker box.